Pissing in a River

by Lorrie Sprecher

  “I like being close to you, too.”

  I went into Jake’s room to take my pills and put on my special blue Kurt Cobain T-shirt for sleeping in. It was a photo of Kurt in his pajamas, looking cozy and smiling, playing an acoustic guitar. When I went into the bedroom, Melissa was already under the covers. “Can I still have a kiss goodnight?” she asked, as I got in bed next to her.

  “Oh my God, course you can.” I moved closer and kissed her, my entire body buzzing.

  “I don’t know what’s the matter with me,” she said disconsolately as we both lay awake. “I thought I dealt with this ages ago.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “You dealt with it yesterday, didn’t you?”

  “You’re very amusing.” Melissa got up. “It’s no use. I can’t sleep.”

  “What calms you down?”

  “Listening to punk music.”

  “Me, too.” I followed her downstairs.

  “Go back to bed.”

  “Don’t be daft.”

  Melissa put on the Vibrators singing “Baby, Baby,” and just like the song, I turned to her and said, “Baby, baby, baby, won’t you be my girl?”

  “Why do people think punk wasn’t sweet?” Melissa asked. She put on a gorgeous acoustic version of “Baby, Baby” from the Unpunked album. “I have so many versions of this song it’s criminal.”

  “You know when Knox sings, ‘Aah, let me put my arms around you / just wanna use up a little of your time’? I always thought it was, ‘Just wanna use up plenty of your time.’ That makes sense especially when I think about being with you,” I said, holding her hand. And Melissa blushed.

  TRACK 31 D’You Know What I Mean?

  I plugged in my Gibson and wrote a song about Melissa. I wrote it to the same beat as the song “Bubblehead” by a German band called Uncle Ho, only faster, and was also inspired by “Things Are Getting Better (sic)” by the 25th of May.

  In the evening, we sat in the back lounge and watched a crime drama on telly. When it ended, I said, “Have you ever noticed how whenever anyone gives a profile of a serial killer, it almost always starts, he’s a white male between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five?” Melissa muted the volume on the remote. I lay with my head in her lap and looked up at her in the telly-screen glow. “Why does no one ever say, there seems to be a pattern here?” Melissa wrapped the arms of her purple cardigan around me. She looked tired but had refused my exhortations to sleep. “I wrote a song about you today,” I volunteered shyly.

  “Tell it to me,” Melissa said.

  “Only if you go to bed.”

  “I’ll lie down on the bed downstairs, alright?”

  We got up, and after covering her with a quilt, I ran upstairs to get my guitar and the small Vox practice amp I’d found in Jake’s wardrobe. Or, as I had begun to call it, “Jake’s miraculous wardrobe” because so many wondrous things came out of it.

  “What’s it called?” Melissa asked.

  “‘Lipstick.’”

  “Because I wear so much of it?”

  “I’m glad you don’t. Kissing a woman in lipstick is like kissing a crayon. Once I had a reissue lavender Danelectro guitar with lipstick pickups—single coils that look like silver lipstick tubes—and thought that made me a ‘lipstick lesbian.’”

  Melissa laughed as I tuned my guitar.

  Standing in the rain wearing your sweater

  the angels that call after me use your name

  everywhere I go I pretend I’m walking right behind you

  and you turn around

  see me plain standing like a stain on the ground

  in my own orbit a star a lonely satellite

  without a planet to wrap her up and hold her tight

  I’m watching you in my mind like you’re on TV

  I see you what do you see?

  Streets suck me down your front door makes me drown

  don’t tell me the raindrops are not really angels

  cause I like the way they paint your face such grace

  a sweet embrace just a trace of a smile burdens your lips

  the lips I want to kiss without lipstick

  makes me want to drown take me down with you

  I’m watching you in my mind like you’re on TV

  I see you what do you see?

  I’m romance insomniac four a.m. I yak yak yak yak

  cough syrup without the hack won’t set me back

  won’t give the sleep I lack just a kiss one you wouldn’t miss

  lend me a kiss I swear I’ll give it back to you

  let me kiss your lips without lipstick

  let me taste the rain on your hair on your coat

  on your mouth on your eyelids on your cheeks

  I’m standing in the rain wearing your sweater

  hoping everything in my life gets better

  I’m standing in the rain

  take me down with you

  “I’m gobsmacked,” Melissa said when I finished singing and put down the guitar. “Did the angels that call after you really use my name?”

  “You bet they did.”

  “Come ’ere,” she said.

  I jumped backward onto the bed. Then I draped myself over Melissa in her pink-paisley pajama bottoms and the long-sleeved white thermal shirt that made her seem even cuddlier.

  She put her arms around my neck. “You’re not bored?”

  “Bored?”

  “With me.”

  “After two days? Listen. I could kiss you for a million years without needing to move on to anything else. You’re the best kisser.”

  She rolled on top of me and put her hands beneath my head. “You’re so fucking sweet.” She kissed me. “Tell me more about the angels.” I tugged at the hem of her shirt. She pressed herself against me and kissed me harder. I started shaking all over. “Whatever’s the matter, love?”

  “Nothing,” I said, trying to shrug nonchalantly.

  “Calm down. Take a few deep breaths.”

  I sat up. She took off her cardie and wrapped it around my shoulders. I couldn’t stop trembling and said, “I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I usually don’t freak out when someone kisses me.”

  “Ah, it’s just me then,” Melissa said, and I burst into tears. “Oh, God. Sorry, love. I was only taking the mickey.”

  “You’re so beautiful, and I’m so freaked out.” I buried my face in her breasts.

  Melissa caressed my back soothingly.

  “Do you know what it’s like to suddenly meet the person you’ve wanted to meet almost your entire life and then have her—well, kiss you?”

  Melissa looked confused and handed me a tissue.

  I blew my nose. “It’s intense. It’s overwhelming. It’s overwhelmingly intense.”

  “You’ve gone all white.”

  I said, “That’s funny,” because I was wearing my dark-blue “Fuck White Supremacy” sweatshirt. “Did I ever tell you I was born on the white-baby side of a segregated hospital?”

  Melissa patiently waited for me to make sense, an exquisitely gentle look on her face that absolutely devastated me with the terror of its beauty.

  “There’s things I haven’t told you.” I raised my head. “It’s not fair of me not telling you after you’ve been so honest with me.” I wasn’t sure I should tell her what I was sure I needed to tell her. But if I didn’t, I’d feel like an imposter, like she’d be kissing me under false pretenses.

  “You don’t have to tell me anything that makes you uncomfortable, love.”

  “No, I have got to tell you.”

  “You can tell me anything.”

  “It’s something I never tell anyone,” I said.

  “I’m not just anyone.”

  “No,” I said, “you certa
inly aren’t.” I opened my mouth to say more, but nothing came out. Finally I said, “I don’t know if I can.”

  “You better if it’s upsetting you.”

  I felt nauseous. “I’m afraid it’s a bigger secret than listening to Heart.”

  “Is it bigger than listening to Oasis?” Melissa teased me.

  “Unfortunately it is,” I said. “My lift doesn’t go up to the top floor.”

  “What? Where did you hear that?”

  “On Prime Suspect,” I admitted. That was a television series with the gorgeous Helen Mirren as the tough-talking Detective Superintendent Jane Tennison.

  “What do you mean your lift doesn’t go up to the top floor? What does that mean?”

  “I have fucked-up brain chemicals,” I said, not looking at her. Slowly I told her the abridged story of my psychiatric life.

  When I finished, Melissa sighed and said, “Oh, love.” She held out her arms to me. “Come ’ere and give us a cuddle. I’m glad you told me.”

  “Don’t hate me,” I said.

  “I could never hate you.”

  “I wanted you to know before things went any further.”

  “You’re afraid it would change the way I feel about you?”

  I nodded strenuously. “I figured you’d be decent enough because of what you said to Nick about taking medication if she got too depressed. But I don’t know how you feel personally about me doing it, basically forever, unless someone invents a cure.” I looked into her eyes. “A lot of people think taking psychotropic drugs is like cheating. Even doctors. I couldn’t take hearing that from you.”

  Melissa said, “I don’t feel that way, love. How are you getting them?”

  “I had a six-month prescription when I got here.”

  “Six months? But Amanda—” I could see Melissa trying to work out exactly how long I’d been in the country, “haven’t you already been here six months?”

  “I’m on my last month,” I confessed. “And I guess I may as well tell you that when the drugs run out, so does my official right to be in the UK. I was only supposed to stay six months.”

  Melissa gasped like I’d hit her. “Fuck, love. Thank God I have a prescription pad. So in a little while, you’ll be living here illegally and having a nervous breakdown? Do you have another doctor?”

  I shook my head. “Fuck me. I always wanted to take your breath away, but not like this.”

  “Amanda,” Melissa asked, stunned, “when were you going to tell me all this? What were you planning to do?” Her tone changed. “Are you leaving?” She looked down at her hands in her lap.

  “No, of course I wouldn’t just leave. I don’t know what to do. I’m terrified of getting another shrink, and I don’t even know how to get one. At university, I had the NHS. I can’t afford private rates. And how can I sign on with a local clinic when I’ll be here illegally?”

  “Are you sure you weren’t just gonna fuck off back to the States?” Melissa still looked hurt.

  “Of course not.” I put my arms around her, and she laid her head on my shoulder. “I would never leave you. You’re breaking my heart. I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do. I’ve been in total denial. After I met you, I decided if I ran out of dosh I’d live on the street if I had to. If I had another breakdown, hopefully you’d notice and do something to help me. And maybe you’d let me sleep in your garden.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Melissa said wryly, looking seriously unamused. “Jesus Christ, love. We’ve got to get you a visa extension. If you get caught living here illegally, I think they can deport you and ban you from returning. Shit. Shit. This is just a bit of a shock.”

  “I didn’t realize staying on past six months would be a big deal. As long as I’m not working illegally or using any services, how would the government even notice me?”

  “But you do need to use health-care services,” Melissa shouted at me.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Let’s not panic,” she said, more to herself than to me. “I’ll ring my solicitor. We’ll contact the Home Office and get your visa extended. Then we’ll sort out what to do in the long term. You can use my address. You’ll say I’m responsible for taking care of you financially if you get into trouble.”

  “Melissa, I can’t ask you to do that for me.”

  “Who says I’m doing it for you?” Melissa left the room, and I heard her on the phone. She returned and said, “I rang Harriet, my solicitor, at home. We’ve known each other since university, so she’s an old mate. She’ll get in touch with someone who knows more about immigration law and ring us back tomorrow or the next day. Now what’s this about being afraid to see another psychiatrist? Tell me the truth.”

  “Another shrink might make me change my meds. It took ages to get the combination just right, and if they’re changed one iota, I’ll get really sick. Most shrinks won’t just take your word for it, and every other shrink but the last one has misdiagnosed me and given me the wrong medications.” Deep down, I was somewhat proud of that, as though it meant I was an extraordinarily complex person. “And he was the only one who let me participate in my own treatment. Most shrinks assume that having a mental illness makes you stupid. Especially if you’re female. Even the women shrinks.” I fidgeted, ashamed of the whole sordid mess that was my life and barely able to meet her eyes.

  Melissa said quietly, “I’ll help you.”

  “You’ll write out the scripts for me?”

  “What medications are you taking?”

  I hesitated. I didn’t want her to know precisely how crazy I was.

  “Amanda?”

  “I hadn’t really wanted to tell you.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll just give you blank prescription forms and sign them. Then you fill in the medications and the amounts you want.”

  “Oh, that would be brilliant,” I said.

  She widened her eyes and cocked her head at me.

  “Oh, you’re joking.”

  After some stalling, I told Melissa what I was taking. I expected her to dispute me or at least say “wow” or something, but she just wrote everything down. Then she said, “Listen, I shouldn’t be doing this. If I think it’s necessary, I’ll arrange for you to see a psychiatrist, someone I’ll recommend.”

  “Alright,” I said penitently.

  Melissa still looked miserable. “Are you sure you aren’t just going to leave?” She reached out a hand and tentatively touched my hair but remained apart from me.

  “No.” I pulled her close and held her. “I wouldn’t just leave you. What can I say to reassure you?”

  “I know I don’t really have the right to ask you for assurances. It’s not like we’re—committed or anything.”

  “Well, I’ve almost been committed,” I volunteered ironically.

  “We’ve been—dating—for all of five minutes. I know that. Don’t think—” She bit her lip. “I know you don’t owe me anything.”

  “But we were already best mates,” I argued, “so of course you can ask me for things. Of course you can expect some loyalty. Would you really do all that for me? Be my doctor and my—” I stopped, afraid of saying the wrong thing or saying too much.

  “Mm hmm.” She put her lips on mine then asked shyly, “Do you still want me to be?”

  “Yeah,” I whispered breathlessly, “very much.”

  Melissa curled up next to me. Physically exhausted from not having slept, she dozed off. But I couldn’t rest, having divulged so much. I covered her with the duvet and stroked her hair. “You know I love you, you silly git,” I whispered. “Don’t you?”

  TRACK 32 Potential Suicide

  Unable to sleep, I watched the glow of the moon slice the bed. Even though Melissa had been kinder and more sympathetic than I could ever have hoped, and even thou
gh she acted like she was the one nervous about being left, I was still scared that she would come to her senses and reject me. Melissa awoke in the middle of the night and noticed I was up. “Hiya.” She smiled sleepily. “What’s the matter? Can’t sleep? Upset you told me?”

  I nodded, and she put her arms around me.

  “You should go back to sleep,” I said.

  “I can get up a little late tomorrow. Talk to me.”

  I sang from a Big Audio Dynamite song, “‘On the psycho wing and I ain’t done nothing.’”

  Melissa grinned. “Somehow a psycho wing doesn’t seem the right place for you.” Her arms around me felt like heaven, and I told myself to enjoy it while I still had the chance. “Oh,” she said suddenly, “you were serious.”

  “I guess I left that part out,” I said. “It only happened once.”

  She scrutinized me. “You seem like the kind of person who hid things really well. I mean, from what you’ve told me, you were suicidal all through graduate school and nobody twigged it. How’d you ever get caught?”

  “That’s it exactly,” I said, impressed by her acumen. “I did get caught. I had a crazy lesbian therapist.”

  “They get you every time,” Melissa said.

  “The social worker at university health services suggested I see a therapist as well as a shrink for meds since I’d never tried that and I didn’t understand why the antidepressants weren’t working. I had to find someone off-campus, and as a graduate student on a stipend, I was always skint. There was a mental health clinic in a rough part of DC, on the Maryland border, that charged on a sliding scale according to income. My first therapist was a homophobic straight woman who said she told all her bisexual patients to become heterosexual because that’s a better choice. She said she could never be a lesbian because children are too important to her. I stated the obvious fact that being lesbian does not prevent you from having children, and she said she would never raise children with a female partner because the identification process was all wrong.”

  “Oh, bloody do me a favor,” Melissa groaned.

  “When I pointed out her homophobia, after she’d once again assured me that I could say anything in that room, she threw me out of her office and told me never to come back.”